Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Welcome to Terrier 2020!

This is going to be a huge year, not least because council elections will be held in October and we have a chance to clear the decks at the Warrnambool City Council and start afresh.

And, boy, do we need to start afresh, because the great hope of a new, visionary, united and transparent council after the 2016 election has fallen apart.

We were dudded.

All of those promises on glossy election leaflets and what did we get from our elected councillors? We got a big, fat rate rise above the cap.

And this rate rise of 4.5 per cent was not just for one year, but two, making our average rates ($1920) higher than those in suburban Melbourne (eg $1727 in City of Yarra). I would not be surprised if this year’s rate rise is deferred, after all, it is an election year and it will be all spin and good news stories from here.

But this disgraceful management of our city’s finances is the first of at least 20 good reasons why we need to start over in 2020.

Here are another 19:

1. No councillors questioning why the council had 81 corporate credit cards and how these were used.

2. The inappropriate spending on these cards, including the now infamous Cape Schanck event attended by Cr Tony Herbert and Cr David Owen, and the $700 dinner for four people, including Cr Sue Cassidy and City Growth manager Andrew Paton, at the Myrtle Bar & Grill. Unbelievable.

3. Cr Herbert, as Mayor, failing to tell his fellow councillors about the thousands of dollars in inappropriate credit card spending repaid by former council tourism head, David McMahon, and Cr Kylie Gaston describing the entire credit card scandal as a “blip” that would pass.

4. Cr Gaston and Cr Michael Neoh using the council as a springboard for their political ambitions, sending a clear signal that they would rather be in Spring St than Liebig St. Will they run for council yet again? Probably.

5. Councillors denigrating ratepayers, residents and journalists for daring to ask questions and for refusing to sit down and shut up.

6. The ugly, personal power plays of Crs Herbert and Cassidy over who would be mayor, including Cr Herbert dropping the c-bomb. Classy.

7. The astronomical increase in pet registrations, making them the second highest in Australia, and fining hundreds of dog owners in what became a P/R disaster.

8. The cost of parking and parking fines in the CBD which might bolster revenue, but is killing local traders by a thousand cuts.

9. A $3 million blowout on the Liebig St upgrade, and excessive spending on roundabouts, pedestrian crossings and toilet blocks.

10. The first sod of the Reid Oval redevelopment has not been turned, yet small sporting clubs like East Warrnambool Football and Netball Club are already being shafted. This comes on top of clubs paying a 100 per cent increase in WCC sports ground hiring fees. Meanwhile South West Sport, of which Cr Neoh is CEO, pays no rent for a council-owned property at 34 Koroit St and South West Sport will eventually have a brand new office at Reid Oval. Fair?

11. Whistleblowers within the council being investigated and threatened with disciplinary action.

12. Bending over backwards to accommodate the racing industry and particularly disgraced racehorse trainer Darren Weir by turning our beaches and Albert Park into full-on training facilities.

13. Flagstaff Hill remains a running financial sore, with no clear, public plan for its long-term future.

14. Some council staff living in subsidised, council-owned properties, including one on a verbal agreement only for more than 30 years.

15. The council ignored its survey of 700 people which found most did not want a rate rise. By contrast, an Ipsos survey of 52 people* which declared Warrnambool the most liveable city has become a council mantra.

16. A mural by a convicted paedophile remains covered up at the Lighthouse Theatre, rather than removed, despite the full horror of child sexual abuse in Warrnambool now coming to light.

17. The continuation of the boys’ club mentality within council that allowed bullying to go unchecked, credit cards to be misused and good staff worn down to the point of quitting.

18. A botched attempt to charge local market stallholders $600 a year after complaints from permanent traders yet, this summer, Cr Neoh set up a pop-up restaurant right next to permanent traders.

19. And last but not least, a council that declares itself clean and green, yet still sprays glysophate/Roundup around Lake Pertobe; wants to allow racehorse training where hooded plovers nest; wants to fly across the world to Sweden to talk about hydrogen; and attempted to cut down 115-year-old Moreton Bay figs.

 

I am sure each of you could add more, but the point is we deserve so much better and we can demand it.

We want community leaders who have the community at heart – not people installed for their own self-interest, or by a particular interest group.

We don’t want more slogans and spin – we want honest answers to our questions and a bold, realistic, sustainable plan for our city.

Above all, we want an end to the waste of ratepayer and taxpayer money.

This is the year we can make a change – we can do it – and campaign 2020 starts now.

[*Ipsos interviewed 9515 people nationally for its survey. Of these, 52 were from south-west Victoria, which was defined as an area east of Colac, up to Casterton and across to the SA border. The majority of these 52 ranked the south-west highly on various liveability measures.]

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Carol Altmann – The Terrier

There are so many wasteful decisions being made in our city at the moment that I’m going to throw it all into one big bowl for you and call it a dog’s breakfast.

First, the Warrnambool City Council has just advertised three new senior management positions at around $100,000 a year that will add, roughly, at least another $300,000 a year to its wage bill.

This comes, of course, as the council awaits to hear whether it is allowed to raise rates above the 2.5% cap to 4.5% for the next three years because it needs to save $700,000 a year.

Hiring more senior staff…while trying to save money. I can’t work that one out.

The three new positions include not one, but two management positions to work on developing Reid Oval so that it can host AFL practice matches, even though council-operated childcare and home care services may have to be cut and the art gallery (still) gets just $15,000 a year to spend on buying new art.

Welcome to the spending priorities in the city of WooBoo.

The third position is a project officer who will help develop the new joint library with TAFE.

All three positions run until 2022, which means a total salary bill of at least $300,000 x three years = $900,000.

 

This comes on top of the current contingent of senior council staff already earning over $100,000 and any consultants that, no doubt, will also be brought into the mix.

In 2016, the council had 21 staff earning a total salary package of more than $120,000 and, last year, it spent $900,000 on consultants. Let’s not forget the CEO position also attracts a salary of more than $310,000.

My eyeballs are watering.

Any day now the Essential Services Commission will rule whether the council has done enough to cut its discretionary spending, which brings us to the Sharp shimmy…

As we know, Sharp Airlines is shimmying off stage and ending its passenger service from Warrnambool to Essendon.

This is not a shock. In fact, it was entirely predictable, given the airline planned to close the route in January, but was offered $300,000 of public funds to try and turn things around by May: an almost impossible task.

Should Sharp have taken the money? Should it have just said “no thanks, we’re closing and that’s it”?

That is up for debate, but the bigger question is why did our council – our financially strapped council – provide $78,000 of that money? Why?

Sharp didn’t ask for it, but the council – apparently via former CEO Bruce Anson – handed it over anyway.

It is this sort of waste that makes ratepayers’ hair stand on end. Which brings us to chopping down trees for more bitumen.

As we know, the council recently and reluctantly saved two 115-year-old Moreton Bay fig trees from being axed to make way for a new footpath, only to last Friday cut down an 80-plus-year-old New Zealand Christmas tree in Kepler St…to make way for a new footpath.

It did so without consultation or notification, which means its tree policy is not worth the paper it is written on.

A council spokesman told the newspaper (I didn’t get any answers to my questions on this topic) that the tree had to go because the public was baying for a high-quality roundabout at the corner of Timor and Kepler streets.

Did you hear any baying? I didn’t.

Did you see any petition with hundreds of signatures saying please build us a high-quality roundabout on Kepler St? I haven’t.

What I have heard is person after person saying please stop wasting our hard-earned ratepayer and taxpayer dollars.

 

What I have also heard is people saying please stop turning our CBD into an urban wasteland of cement and concrete and pavers, where trees are seen as a problem, not part of the solution.

Other cities, truly cosmopolitan cities like Hobart and Sydney, value their trees.

In Hobart, they put rubber matting over the roots to protect the pavement and the tree.

In Paddington, Sydney, they let the trees grow right up through the pavement and people go around them or use the path across the street. Radical, hey?

 

The revitalisation of the CBD started out as a reason for celebration, but after a $3 million cost blowout and an ongoing obsession with building enormous pedestrian crossings and new roundabouts, it has turned into a financial nightmare.

We can only hope that we all wake up soon.

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